5

Only five days had passed since the fight with Torch, but for Mouse it was as if nothing had happened, he had beaten another child to death and life had gone on as if nothing had happened. When after cleaning his assigned tunnels, Mouse went to the dining room.

The new guard seemed to be waiting for him, since he approached him as soon as he entered the premises. He didn't seem like he was going to take out his baton, nor did he have any aggressive attitude. Mouse looked at him with determination.

"Hey Mouse, I want to talk to you, I have something to propose to you, by the way you can call me Fang"

"Strange name, what does a guard want from a simple poop cleaner?"

"Well, you're not simple, I saw you fight the other day"

"Is there a problem with that?"

"No, on the contrary, an opportunity, if you accept, of course..."

"I don't understand."

"Come here for a moment, I'll tell you my proposal..."

Fang's idea was that Mouse would participate in a fight with a child from another sector as a pre-show for a real fight between adults. A way of warming up for the public, the offer was twenty shillings and a meal of non-synthetic meat. Mouse didn't know what Fang meant by that last bit.

However, twenty shillings weren't enough for Mouse to dare to beat up another child to amuse the adults. He was about to decline Fang's offer when he brought out his last card.

"You can always bet on yourself. You're an unknown, but the other boy has already participated in another fight once, the odds will be three to one against you..."

"Betting? I don't understand what that is..."

"Contestants can only bet on themselves so that the fights aren't rigged, but if you have twenty talents saved up, you would win forty plus your twenty. You have a year left to get out of the tunnels, I'm sure a few extra credits would come in handy to build a future for yourself."

Fang had only been there a few months, but he recognized the fact that a nine-year-old boy according to his file ate only half rations, he was saving to buy a skill, he had done the same when he was Mouse's age. What the guard didn't know was that Mouse hadn't been saving for a few months, he had already saved for four years.

The boy did the math, it's not that he had a great education in mathematics, just numbers and adding, but he only had to add the same amount to the amount he had twice. He had about seven hundred salaries saved up, if he bet five hundred he could win a thousand, and if he lost he could still buy a skill with his savings, or maybe he wouldn't need them if he ended up dead.

He was a simple pooper, a G class, the scum, the opportunities for his kind were not many. Mouse thought about it a bit, the fang-like look was expectant of his decision.

"Let's say I accept, what would be the rules of the fight?"

"Well that's easy, you won't be able to use the metal plates, you have to be clear about that, but you will fight for three rounds of two minutes, if you knock your opponent unconscious you win the fight it doesn't matter if it's at the beginning or at the end, if you knock him down three times and your opponent's back touches the ground in the same round you win the round, if you hit him more than he hits you win the round and if you win three rounds you win the fight, anything goes except biting"

Mouse thought about it a bit, he had always fought to ensure victory, the metal plates on his knuckles had made his job easier. However, if the boy in question had been depriving himself of food for a few months, even if he had participated in a fight he still wouldn't have fully recovered, that was his trump card.

"Deal..."

"Perfect, perfect, the fight will be in five days..."

Fang had to confirm his sponsor and organize how to get him out of the tunnel sector without anyone seeing him. The poop cleaners were forbidden to go out to the station unless they were taken to a medical center or for questioning.

The boy had participated in many fights, many of them bloody, and most so extreme that his life or that of the other boy were at stake, but this was different, he couldn't count on knocking out his opponent, he lacked the strength in his fists for that and even more without the metal reinforcements.

In this fight there were rules, the options to win the rounds were to knock the other down three times or hit him more. The first option was difficult, because of his weight and size, Mouse had no advantage in knocking down a bigger and heavier boy.

He was used to hunger, it is true that it had not allowed him to grow strong, but he could endure a long fight, he did not feel the fatigue that was seen in boys of his age who suddenly began to eat half as much, the most difficult thing would be to overcome the first round, from there he would have the advantage.

The night of the fight arrived, and Mouse stayed until the end of the meal shift, as agreed with the guard, when the guards were going to close the facilities and took out the buckets to clean up the waste on the floor. Fang pointed out a bucket to him and the boy got inside as agreed.

The guard, not without difficulty, put the bucket on a wheelbarrow as he did every day and took it through the access door of the facilities. There were no guards or anything like that, it was not necessary, the door to the Gretia space station would only open after passing the retina scanner.

Although the bucket had the lid on, Mouse managed to look out through a small gap left by the lid. The last time he left his sector was when they caught Rabbit. That time he had made the trip there unconscious and the return trip with his head covered by a bag, so everything he was seeing now from his angle was new.

For Mouse, it was as if he had entered a palace, and not because the cold metal corridors were pretty, or because there were large spaces, it was because he had lived many years in the tunnels, his memories of the farm as a child were already blurred, and that cleanliness, the size that allowed an adult to walk upright, overwhelmed him.

After a few minutes, it seemed that they had reached the room where the guards threw away the organic waste. Fang lifted the lid and let the child out.

"Now it is important that you do not make noise or move, get in that box and whatever happens, do not be afraid"

The box was a type of plastic packaging, even narrower than the previous bucket, I continued in the wheelbarrow, I could tell by the posture and the inclination. Fang crossed paths with some patrols, some acted as if they had not seen him, and others asked and the guard only told them that he had bought something for their shelter. They did not bother to check the container.

They had to get on some kind of transport, because although Mouse did not notice the wheelbarrow moving, he could feel a sensation of acceleration and vibration in his surroundings. After more than an hour they went outside again, he could hear Fang panting from the effort.

Finally, the wheelbarrow stopped and Fang opened the container.

"You can go out, calm down, there is no danger now..."

He was in a square room, about three by three meters, a kind of warehouse with a door on each side, he could hear the sound of many people talking loudly behind one of them.

"Do you want to bandage your fists?"

Although Mouse was nervous to see what was waiting for him on the other side of the door, he took the pieces of clean clothing that the guard offered him, they were much better than the rags with which he normally tied his hands. Years of experience had made him tie his hands like a professional wrestler, there were mistakes, but Mouse made sure that all the fingers and the knuckle area were sufficiently secured and padded.

When the boy was ready he made a gesture to Fang, when he opened the door that led to the fighting area a new universe opened up before the boy.